If you need dual displays on a PC, you can pop in a video card that supports multiple outputs. Laptops, however, aren't as easy to expand in this fashion. Kulvir Bhogal shows you how to set up multiple monitors for your laptop across a network using software called MaxiVista. No new hardware required.

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One of the great benefits of having a laptop computer is that your machine is
portable. While the portability of a laptop is a great offering, unfortunately,
laptop screens can be quite restrictive. You can’t add multiple video
cards to the laptop machine that allow you to run dual-display setups, despite
the fact that displaying your desktop on multiple monitors is natively supported
by Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98, as well as many popular distributions of Linux.
Desktop computers even have the luxury of being able to use high-end,
multiple-head video cards, which allow you to run a dual-display system using
one video card. In short, it seems that if you have a laptop, then your screen
real estate is restricted to the confines of your laptop display. Some high-end
laptops such as the IBM ThinkPad T41p natively support multiple monitor display
via an embedded second video card, but what if you laptop doesn’t have
such a feature?

In this article, I’ll show you how you can establish a dual-display
setup on Windows using a software application named MaxiVista. You’ll be
able to extend your display without having to do any invasive surgery to your
laptop.

Curing Your Screen Real Estate Envy with MaxiVista

MaxiVista allows you to use another PC on your network as an extended display
of your primary PC. To reiterate, in order to extend your display onto the
monitor of another computer, all that is required is your PCs to be
connected on a local network. You do not have to physically connect the monitor
of your secondary PC to your primary PC. Also, the appropriate MaxiVista
software needs to be installed on the primary PC as well as the secondary PC
(i.e., the PC whose screen you want to borrow). With MaxiVista, you can move
toolbars and application windows from your primary display across to your
virtual (secondary) display as if you had one large monitor. In short, MaxiVista
lets you move beyond the confines of your existing display. You can lessen the
need to have to have one window hidden behind another because you have nowhere
for the windows to go. Rather, you can place your windows across the screen real
estate you gain courtesy of MaxiVista. MaxiVista is officially supported on
Microsoft Windows 2000/2003/XP for your primary PC. For the secondary PC,
MaxiVista can run on Windows 98/ME/2000/2003/XP.

At the time of this article’s writing, MaxiVista was available for a
free 14-day trial download. It can be downloaded from
http://www.maxivista.com/.
MaxiVista’s price is quite the bargain. The application comes in different
flavors that are priced differently. I’ll be focusing on the Standard
version of MaxiVista.